


Truths

by Rynfinity



Series: Out of the Mouths of Babes [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Sibling Incest, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:12:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He’s my brother,” Thor says with a shrug. “I don’t expect you to understand.”</p><p>He doesn’t. He doesn’t understand any of it himself, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a rather dark and nasty one-shot, and then grew.
> 
> WARNING: References to self-harm, attempted suicide, and mental illness. Proceed with caution.

“But I don’t want to,” Thor complains. “I hate it. I hate _him_.”

“No you don’t,” his father starts in, for the four-millionth time, before Frigga cuts in smoothly:

“I’m sorry, honey. I know this is difficult for you. But the doctors tell us it’s very important for your brother to maintain contact with the outside world. They say it helps him remember he has something to live for.”

“What, fucking my life up as much as he has his,” Thor mutters under his breath but he stands anyway. He sighs loudly as both his parents pretend they couldn’t hear him. They could. They did.

It’s not like it matters. What Loki wants, Loki gets.

~

The room is dull institutional green, furnished with cheap, mismatched plastic furniture. No sharp edges, no heavy objects. There are locking metal cages over the bare fluorescent bulbs that span the dingy ceiling. Both dirty windows are barred – one is the fire escape; for the life of him Thor isn’t sure how one could possibly escape through it if the situation truly required it – and the small, smudged pane in the thick metal door is reinforced with wire. Above the chipped green tile, the walls are thick with peeling paint.

He’s alone in here with his brother. The camera mounted in the corner, behind yet another locking metal cage, serves as constant reminder that Loki is not a guest here.

Loki, who – sprawling across the battered plastic couch facing him, wearing orange scrubs that clash with everything else in the room – still manages to look for all the world like a pretty porcelain doll.

Thor can’t help but think of Chucky.

His brother doesn’t speak; he just slumps on the couch, the long, delicate fingers of one hand playing over the long scar marring the inside of the other wrist. “Did it hurt,” Thor asks, mostly just for lack of anything better to say.

“It felt good,” Loki says. “Like freedom. Except that all turned out to be a lie, didn’t it? Because I have to tell you: I’m not feeling particularly free right now.”

 _Like the rest of us are,_ Thor thinks. His brother is holding their collective lives hostage. Has been ever since he went and got himself locked up in this shithole. Well, before that, really.

“I would do it again in a heartbeat, you know?” Loki’s eyes are unnervingly green in this harsh light.

As usual, Thor can’t tell if his brother is serious or not. “I liked you better before you got so fucked-up,” he tells Loki. He’s not quite sure if he means it, or if he’s just looking for a reaction. Some hint that his brother is still human.

“I’ve always been this fucked-up,” Loki points out. “You just liked me better before you knew it.”

~

“Why do you even care what he says,” Fandral asks. “Why do you let him get to you like this? He just does it to burn you.” Thor’s friends hate seeing him beating himself up over his brother, he knows. Not like he can help it.

“He’s my brother,” Thor says with a shrug. “I don’t expect you to understand.” He doesn’t. He doesn’t understand any of it himself, after all.

~

“Your counselor wants to meet with me,” Thor tells his smirking brother. Loki has taken up his usual post on the plastic couch. His wrists are nearly healed, the scars faded to dull pink against the white of his skin, but he runs his fingers over them incessantly just the same. “Why? Tell me,” he orders when Loki just laughs.

“I told him you raped me.”

“You what?!” Thor lunges forward, remembering just in time that the camera is always watching. There’s a hint of something ugly in his brother’s eyes in the instant before Thor stops; not fear so much as hunger. Which is far worse. “I could lose my scholarship, you lying little fucker,” Thor spits, to cover the sick horror he’s feeling.

“Who’s lying,” Loki asks, a wicked smile spreading slowly across his face. “I remember your dick twitching in me as clearly as if it had just happened this morning. I remember everything you said to me, all the breathless promises you made. More than anything, I remember the ridiculous look on your face as you-“

Thor can’t help it; he slaps Loki hard across the face. His palm stings. The reddening handprint on his brother’s face does nothing to lessen Loki’s victorious expression. He should apologize, Thor thinks as he waits – heart pounding – for a guard to burst through the door and take him away.

He says nothing. No one comes.

Loki licks his pretty pink lips. “As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, I remember the ridiculous look on your face as you shot your load so far up my ass I could practically taste-”

Thor clenches his fists to keep from attacking. “You are a liar and a crass pig.”

“Oh, _crass pig_ I’ll give you… but I’m not lying, _brother_ and you know it. You fucked me day and night the entire summer, right up until you went back to school. Then you cast me aside like a crusty sock, hidden under your bed for mother to find.”

Thor can hardly breathe. “You _asked_ me to, Loki. You _begged_ for it. I _never_ did anything against your wishes, against your will. Never. Anything.”

Loki snorts. “Don’t worry. They won’t believe me over you anyway. I’m crazy, remember?”

“I hate you,” Thor says with as much feeling as he can muster.

“That makes two of us, you know,” Loki counters. It’s only when the guard knocks on the door and Thor manages to stagger out into the hall that he realizes he’s not even sure who Loki means.

~

“How was your incest chat,” Loki asks pleasantly.

“Shut up. Just- just shut the fuck up.”

~

Thor has never been as mortified as he was last week… sitting in that meeting, carefully not admitting to the serious, expressionless man with the fast-moving pencil that he had indeed screwed his _willing_ brother into the mattress. Over and over and over. All summer, just like Loki had described, desperately clinging to something in his brother Thor knew – just _knew_ \- was fast slipping away.

It was all true, every sick little bit, except the last part. Thor had by no stretch of the imagination cast Loki aside – rather, he had gone back to school in tears after trying every way he knew how to talk his brother into coming with him. _I’m worried about you,_ he’d said, and _I’ll miss you._ When all else failed, he’d gotten down on his knees and begged. _I love you,_ he’d pleaded. _I don’t think I can live without you_.

Loki had just laughed.

And then waited a few weeks, just long enough for Thor’s broken heart to scab over… before picking up a razorblade and trying – all but succeeding, from what he’s been told – to take his own life.

Thor had somehow – barely - managed not to tell any of that to the doctor. He’d said as little as humanly possible; just sat there with his teeth clenched, fighting the urge to vomit, as the man had asked him questions Thor was absolutely certain would land his football-playing ass in jail. Or (better or worse, he’s not sure) drive _him_ just as crazy as his brother.

 _Why do you think he might be accusing you of this,_ the doctor had finally questioned.

Thor had shrugged. _Who knows why he does what he does? Loki lies, you know._

~

“I’m going back to school next week.” The words hang heavy in the air between them. It will be the first time he’s been back on campus since his mother had called all those months ago, sobbing, screaming something incoherent about _Loki_ and _bathtub_ and _so much blood._

Loki picks absently at the chipped edge of the couch beneath his thigh.

“Will you miss me,” Thor asks.

His brother looks up, face expressionless. “Why would I,” he counters coldly. “It’s not like you come here willingly.”

Thor can’t sustain the anger anymore. He’s- he’s just afraid. Sick with fear. Shaking with it.

“Promise me you won’t hurt yourself again,” he begs, voice breaking.

His brother grins, all teeth. “And what possible good is a promise from me, brother? I lie.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, the one-shot had a friend.

_I almost made it,_ Thor thinks.

As if he could ever _hope_ to escape the godforsaken undertow that is his fucked-up family.

~

For a stretch there, things had really seemed to be looking up. His college sweetheart Jane, long-suffering and amazingly tolerant, had put up with him all the way through law school graduation. With a PhD of her own she'd landed a good job - a tenure-track research position in the physics department of a major university, conveniently close to Thor's hometown - and they'd moved... well, it was only _home_ for Thor but they were making it work somehow.

Thor had gotten a job in the DA's office, working with his dad.

His dad who had somehow risen from the ashes of Loki's suicide attempt, pulled himself tenuously together, and returned to putting the dregs of society behind the solid bars where they so clearly belonged.

Thor hadn't gone back to see Loki after the counselor business - _My therapist says you and your brother are too enmeshed,_ Jane had told him, _and she tells me it's preventing you from establishing a functional adult relationship with me or anyone else in your life. She says you really need to work on your boundaries,_ Jane’d continued, as she explained why she would be moving out unless he _was willing to actually work on improving himself_ \- using the situation with Jane as Proof Things Are Best This Way.

He'd heard through their (profoundly disappointed, and never one to miss a chance to tell him so) mother, though, that Loki's doctors had finally found a combination of medications that worked effectively. Loki had been discharged, ostensibly _well_ and _stable_ for the first time in forever, and had promptly dropped off the face of the earth.

Without the near-constant reminder of his brother's _presence,_ Thor had found it far easier to give Jane what she wanted; a _real_ relationship, one where he was consistently _available_ and willing to be close to her.

Or, at least, where he had enough bandwidth available to fake it far more believably. Jane, obviously, wasn't privy to that bit.

~

People see what they want to see, after all. God knows he's proved that more than amply himself.

~

When Loki had finally shown back up on the Borson/Odinson radar, Thor's choice had abruptly become easier still: His little brother was, it seemed, doing time for arson. From what Thor and his father had been able to dig up _through the proper channels_ , Loki had apparently fallen in with a bad crowd; the charges and subsequent conviction had stemmed from an explosion at the scene of some sort of take-over-the-world scheme gone bad.

Even off his meds Loki apparently hadn't been _quite_ crazy enough to carry off an insanity plea... and with the business they were in neither Odin nor Thor had deemed it wise to get even the smallest bit involved.

Plus, it had been too late by then anyway.

~

Contrary to what he might have expected - though there would have been a surprising amount of guilt, if he had only let himself feel it... which he very carefully had not - Thor'd quickly found Loki's incarceration incredibly _freeing_. With his baby brother in jail, Thor had finally been able to set down the (immense, evidently, when he'd considered it in retrospect) burden he had shouldered so long ago. It was no longer his responsibility to keep Loki safe. Sane. Alive.

Someone else was babysitting - being paid to babysit, even, from Thor's own tax dollars - Loki.

With Loki caged, Thor had been set free. It felt far better than it probably should have, really.

~

_Except for how he wasn't. And it didn't._

~

This time, the place is more about bars - serious, we-mean-business bars, with bulletproof glass and spit-guards separating the prisoners from their visitors - and less about personal safety.

It is, however, the same drab, institutional green. And this time _he_ is the one sitting on the ugly, battered plastic furniture - the prisoners, it seems, sit on a concrete bench of sorts built into the floor - and the feel of it beneath his hands, his thighs, makes Thor's skin crawl.

He is here, just a few short weeks after he and Odin'd buried Frigga - Thor's mother ( _their_ mother, he supposes, although he for one is no longer sure Loki is capable of anything that might remotely pass as human feeling… human connection) had died at the hands of a madman, thankfully _not_ her younger son, who'd held Odin responsible for the long-ago death of the his own family - at the request of _Loki's doctor_.

~

 _Your brother needs you,_ the nice receptionist had patiently explained - over and over, against his insistent refusals - on the phone. _You are all he has, now._ In the end, her persistence had won.

~

The ensuing conversation with Jane had been eerily reminiscent of the arguments with Fandral - with all Thor's friends - those many years ago.

When he'd pointed out - as he packed his overnight bag, stuffing it frantically with a near-giddy mania that had proved frightening even to Thor himself - that he did not expect her to understand, she'd laughed; a cold, mirthless little huff. 

_Good,_ she'd countered. _Then I won't have to waste time expecting you to understand when you come back to find me gone._

~

At the time, he hadn't been sure she'd meant it. Now, sitting here on this awful chair, he isn't sure he cares.

~

When the guards march Loki out and plop him ungently on the bench, Thor is _shocked_. His brother is wearing a bonafide, honest-to-god, old-fashioned _straightjacket_. Loki is neatly encased from neck to crotch, all buckles and straps and loops and rings.

From the quick glimpse Thor'd caught when the heavy metal door opened, and the unhappy wince as Loki'd landed, Thor can only surmise his brother is otherwise bare... his scrawny ass cheeks flat on the cold concrete.

Thor swallows hard and - with a degree of difficulty that is at once surprising and disgusting - tears his gaze away from the smudged canvas. He forces himself to look Loki in the face.

Tells himself he's imagining the brief, knowing flash in Loki's eyes.

Tells himself Loki is licking his chapped, sore-looking lips - slowly, slowly - solely because they are _chapped and sore_.

Tells himself firmly there _is no_ answering tug at his own groin. Because Thor Odinson, Esquire, is not a man who finds the sight of his bound, helpless brother - still gorgeous beneath the filth and the wear and tear, still delicate and pretty as a porcelain doll, albeit one that's seen better days - _arousing_.

He clears his throat. Picks up the filthy, battered handset. Makes a feeble, nervous joke - "Hey, is this thing on?" - that dies a sad little death when Loki fails to crack even a false smile. "How are you, brother," he asks, trying not to cringe.

"Never better," Loki responds, baring his teeth in something halfway between a grimace and a grin. "You like my Hannibal Lector look, I see. Tell me, would a nice muzzle add the perfect finishing touch?"

Loki's voice is raspy and raw; Thor makes himself focus on that and not on what his brother is saying. _His doctor says he needs you,_ he reminds himself, nails of his free hand dug into the corresponding palm.

He will not dignify the question with an answer. Or, rather, doesn't dare. "They tell me you are in need of help," he says instead. "They say mother's death," - he feels himself on the verge of tearing up, but pushes on - "hit you hard."

Loki's eyes narrow, surprisingly bright above bruise-dark circles. "Oh? And what _else_ did they tell you, _brother?_ "

Thor's stomach lurches dangerously. "N-nothing. I don't know what you mean."

"They didn't tell you I lost it, even by my low standards? That I broke everything in my cell, even the things that _cannot be broken?_ That I screamed until my throat taste of blood, and ripped my own skin off with my bare hands?" Loki frowns. "They told you none of that?"

"No, Loki," Thor whispers into the filthy mouthpiece. He is shaking violently now, not even bothering trying to hide it.

His brother strains forward, leaning in until that pretty mouth is _right there_. "Then why, poor fool," he hisses into the grille, "have you come?"

 _Because I love you,_ Thor thinks, squeezing his eyes tight shut lest the unfortunate sentiment show.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that this, though it's an AU, is:
> 
> * running pretty much in parallel to the events of Thor, the Avengers, and Thor 2: The Dark World  
> * told from Thor's POV
> 
> So, remember what Thor thinks (with regards to Loki) at the end of Thor 2.
> 
> Sorry?

The letter - who writes _letters_ anymore... but inmates have few viable options at their disposal, Thor supposes - comes as a surprise. A shock, even.

He has it memorized now, though. Still, it surprises him.

Thor isn't sure why.

~

_I hear things on the inside,_ it begins, the page covered in Loki's distinctive scrawl. _The man who killed mother - Malekith, he goes by - intends to kill our whole family._

_Father, I mean, and you. I'm not sure if he plans to kill me or not; like everyone but me, he somehow knows I'm adopted._

~

Ah, yes, that. Adopted. The word Thor uses to comfort himself when he can't help but remember fucking Loki: They were not truly brothers, and it wasn't actually wrong, because Loki was adopted.

It's a lie in every way, and Thor knows it. Still, he uses it. Not surprisingly, It doesn't help. He keeps on using it anyway.

And yet Loki is the one they call crazy.

~

_Oh,_ the letter continues. _and one of Malekith's henchmen had the perfect chance to kill me here before - during the uprising last month; you may've seen it in the news? - but he opted to leave me alone. So maybe it's not me they want? I'm a good customer, after all._

Thor isn't sure what Loki means by that. He'd rather not be sure, probably.

_Anyway, I thought I should warn you... even though you hate me and won't believe me. That, and I wanted to tell you: I know where his people live._

_\- Loki,_ Loki'd signed it, a frowny face inside the _o_ and the dot over the _i_ replaced by a heart.

Like Loki is a twelve-year-old girl, rather than a grown man.

Which in a very real sense may be exactly true.

~

Every time Thor reads the letter, he shivers.

He hasn't told Odin, or anyone in the office. He should, but Thor knows how the conversation would (not) go. That, and - like Loki says - he doesn't quite believe the whole story. Bottom line? Thor's not sure it isn't a ploy, one of his brother's many, many twisted tricks.

Tricks which never fail to bite Thor in the ass.

~

Still, there could be a kernel of truth in there somewhere. Thor watches his back and does his research. This _Malekith_ character does exist. The alleged head of a major drug ring, he lost his wife and son decades ago to a bust gone wrong. And, sure enough, the DA in a previous case - one against a cop, the cop who killed Malekith's family - was Odin.

That all proves _Odin_ correct, sure. As if _that_ was ever in doubt. As it was big news, news everyone and his ten cousins heard and saw at every opportunity, even years later - theirs is a gossipy, insular college town like so many others - it doesn't do much of anything for Loki's own credibility.

Thor keeps digging.

Eventually he comes across an inside scoop, something carefully kept from the press because it's material to a current investigation. It's a police advisory, essentially an APB, dated several weeks ago.

_Algrim,_ it reads, _second in command to suspected drug kingpin Malekith (exact present whereabouts unknown), escaped in this week's prison uprising and is believed armed and dangerous. Approach only after securing backup. Algrim is adept in close combat and has extensive military training._

~

Thor reads it over and over, sick guilt at doubting his brother twisting his stomach into knots.

And then he formulates a plan.

~

"You're taking me _where_ ," Loki hisses, clearly incredulous, when two guards bring him, cuffed and filthy, to the side gate. He goes nearly willingly, though - almost cheerfully - as they hurry him into the waiting van.

~

Thor has pulled strings and called in favors. The guards do their part flawlessly, getting the two of them well clear of the good part of town in the official paddy wagon, and then fall neatly by the wayside.

_So far, so good,_ Thor thinks.

Loki, though, is much less impressed. After a short, passionate argument that ends with Thor's hands around his brother's slender neck - to choke him or to kiss him, even Thor himself is hard put to know for certain - Loki laughs. "This plan of yours is going to get us both killed," he says with a smile... a smile that leaves Thor more than a little ill.

He shakes it off. He will not let Loki ruin this. He will not let Loki make him doubt himself.

~

It is a simple plan. They go through it several times as they walk together - Thor in dark clothes and a knit hat; Loki in borrowed sweats, finally free of chains and straightjackets and bindings - past the burned-out houses and broken-windowed, long-abandoned commercial occupancies that line the streets of the slums.

When they get to the right spot Loki will pretend to attack Thor, screaming something about having to kill him before he arrests them all. Thor will strike Loki a blow to the head as he falls. Loki will feign unconsciousness - death, even - and Thor will drop to his knees, wracked with false pain.

When Malekith takes the bait, as he surely must, Thor will put his well-honed street-fighting chops to good use.

Easy. Done and done.

~

Except nothing ever is.

~

"It's right up ahead," Loki whispers.

Thor nods. "Remember, whatever happens: Let me handle it."

He thinks Loki nods. In the black dark between the dull glow of the dingy streetlights, it's hard to be certain.

~

It might have worked, honestly, were it not for Algrim. And for Loki _not listening_.

Thor isn't quite sure what happened... only that there was a gunshot, nearby and deafening. Everyone scattered, and now Loki lies ashen and writhing in pain on the ground. Even in the dim light Thor can see the blood pooling, spreading fast across the sidewalk like ink. So much ink.

So much blood.

It soaks the front of Loki's shirt, and his pale hands. A trickle of it trails in a thin black line from the corner of his blue lips, trickling down to vanish in his dirty hair.

It covers Thor's hands, too, warm and sticky.

_One person cannot bleed this much,_ he thinks. _This isn't happening. It's not possible._

Except he can, and it is, and it is.

~

In their last moments together, Thor feels like all he can manage to do is _argue_. It is really himself he hates, for putting Loki in danger.

Perhaps that has been true all along.

He can't spit it out, even now.

~

"I was a fool," Loki says, and then "I'm sorry." His breath rattles in his thin chest. The clock is winding down. Thor wants to hold his brother close, but he's afraid.

He's babbling now, and so is Loki. There is so much to say. But of course they don't say it.

_I love you,_ Thor thinks. _I would have died for you._ Instead, when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is some stupid promise to tell Odin how honorably Loki died. _Died._ Loki is fucking _dying_ in front of him, on the cracked sidewalk in front of a shitty drug house... and it's Thor's fault, and he can't fucking spit it out even now.

Fucking hell.

Loki looks Thor in the eye one last time. There is no sarcasm, no cruelty in his face now; just agony, and something else that shines out of him. "I didn't do it for him," Loki says, voice almost inaudible, and then he's- he's _gone_.

Loki is gone. His little brother is gone. The love of his life is gone. Thor does gather the bloodied body close now - when did Loki get so _light_ , so thin? - but it's too late and it's no use.

It hurts so bad.

He can't even scream.


End file.
